In the late 1990s, the Forest Service spent about $300 million a year on fire and the Department of the Interior spent another $100 million a year. Then came the 2000 Cerro Grande fire, which burned a billion dollars worth of homes in Los Alamos, NM. After that, Congress opened up the checkbook and told the agencies to spend whatever it takes to keep such a fire from happening again.
The agencies have taken full advantage of this. In 2010, the Forest Service budget for fire was $2.1 billion and USDI’s was more than $850 million. That’s just the budget; the agencies had another $500 million or so to draw upon if they ran over their budgets; if they didn’t go over their budgets, they got to keep the surplus for future years.
Here’s an indication of how expensive fire has become: In 2010, for the first time in at least 60 years, if not the entire 105-history of the Forest Service, the agency spent more money on fire than on all other national forest operations, construction, and maintenance combined.
Why are they spending so much money on fire? It is not because they need to. For one thing, 2010 was one of the least-droughty years on record. The number of acres burned in 2010 was far less than in other recent years and less than any year since 1998.
Moreover, the Forest Service’s own research shows that all that is needed to protect homes and other private structures is to treat the land immediately around the structures; treating millions of acres of public lands for “hazardous fuels” is neither necessary nor sufficient to protect homes. Yet the agencies are spending more than half a billion dollars a year on hazardous fuel treatments, compared with about $10 million a year in the early 1990s.
And now these brain pills is one of the best guarantees with the refund somewhere. levitra 20mg price Physical or organic causes are numerous such levitra generic vardenafil as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, patients who have recently undergone angioplasty eat a bunch of medicines daily just to keep track of digestion. It has been proven that Arginine, an amino acid, it is key to the metabolism of the viagra tablets india body. Our bodies produce nitric oxide, which helps in increasing sensual levitra de prescription feeling. Early this week, the Forest Service announced a new fire plan. As befitting such a well-funded program, it is full of pretty photos of people putting out fires and other people setting things on fire (for hazardous fuel treatments). The only thing missing is the plan itself, for it is really just a plan to write a plan.
The real reason they spend so much money on fire is because they can. Congress has never figured out what to do about fire, so it just throws money at it. In 1908, Congress literally gave the Forest Service a blank check to put out fires. The agency could spend as much as it wanted putting fires out and Congress promised to reimburse it at the end of each fire season. In 1979, Congress repealed the blank check and tried to give the Forest Service a fixed budget, allowing it to carry over the surplus during wet years to spend in dryer years. This led the agency to actually take some steps to reduce costs.
Then came the California fires of 1987 and the Yellowstone fires of 1988. The Forest Service went deeply into debt (borrowing from its reforestation slush fund) putting out those fires. Eventually, Congress made up the deficit and the agency went back into the blank-check mode. Then came Los Alamos, and spending really went wild.
In 2009, still clueless as to what to do about fire, Congress passed the Federal Land Assistance Management and Enhancement (FLAME) Act. Billed by the agencies as revolutionary, it really does nothing more than Congress did in 2000: it asks the agencies themselves to write a new fire plan. Will anyone be surprised when that plan calls for spending more money?
There really is a simple solution to fire. Every state has fire protection districts. Forest landowners in those districts pay a per-acre fee to maintain fire suppression equipment. Congress should simply direct the Forest Service and USDI agencies to join those district, thus letting the states handle the work. The states will have incentives to be efficient if only because the private landowners in those districts want to keep the fees low.
Where will the money come from for federal agencies to pay the per-acre fees? As it happens, 2010 was also the first year in at least 60, if not 105, that recreation fees exceeded timber revenues on the national forests. Recreation and other user fees should be sufficient to pay for fire protection as well as other management activities on most federal lands. The obstacle here is that Congress limits the fees that can be collected.
So true fire reform will probably have to be a part of a larger reform of how the agencies work. Such a reform is desperately needed, as the agencies cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year managing resources that, by all rights, should fully pay their own way.
Well, you can be sure some states will screw it up and several thousand homes in the WUI will go up in flames. Maybe then we’ll start talking about the wisdom of second homes there. But I doubt it.
DS
It seems to me that the biggest problem is that the scale of a particular fire is impossible to predict. I’m not sure why the “budget” is so big, as it seem that a “fund” would make more sense. Not that there should be no budget or planning at all, but the lion share of the money should be saved in an emergency fund to actually respond to the fires. Of the $2+billion how much was spent?
As an aside, a couple of my buddies in western CO who are former firefighters started a defensible spacing business and are making good money off the backs of second homeowners who build mansions in the NF in places like Crested Butte and Telluride. Building a house in dense forests in CO, NM, UT and WY = asking for it… Unless you hire these guys.
There is an even simpler solution – burn the forests every year or two like the Indians used to do to keep the brush down and the forests open and airy as the colonists found them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_use_of_fire
Andrew,
I’m assuming the controlled burns will cost money too, especially with the development around the NF in today’s context. While controlled burning may be a good idea, I’m not sure it provides any budgetary effectiveness in regards to today’s post.
“The obstacle here is that Congress limits the fees that can be collected.”
I know it’s a broken record at this point, but the real obstacle is that Congress grants a monopoly privately held companies to provide services in parks for a paltry percentage. The profits from lodging, camping, stores, etc. should go to maintain the park, and that includes the fire program.
“I’m assuming the controlled burns will cost money too…”
Prescribed fire is many orders cheaper per acre than suppressing wildfire.
A large part of the cost for suppression is labor; firefighting is long, hard work. I worked some shifts over 30 hours long. I was well paid for this backbreaking work. Wildland firefighters on the GS scale are paid overtime and hazard pay, which contributes to the high cost of labor. This labor is also expensive because its highly specialized. Brains are equally important as brawn as many difficult classes are required to get a red card.
The Forest Service employs and pays most of its firefighters whether they fight fires or not. With profligate amounts of money available, as the Antiplanner details, it behooves the agency to employ close to the worst case scenario number of firefighters regardless of how severe a fire season is predicted.
Most fire suppression costs are expended on a very few, very large fires, e.g., 2007 San Diego fires that destroyed 1,500 homes and burned 500,000 acres. Wind-driven fires in drought-stricken fuels, such as these, are about as controllable as earthquakes and tsunamis. Managing the people affected becomes emergency personnel’s main job, as stopping the fires themselves is impossible. Yet we spend hundreds of millions on such fires dropping retardant where it does little, if any, good.
Fire has replaced logging not only as the Forest Service’s budgetary raison d’etre, but also as a major source of government spending (read “jobs”) in western states. Former loggers now lease their bulldozers to the Forest Service to fight fires.
Unlike typical urban and rural fire districts, where the local beneficiaries of firefighting foot the costs, the federal government’s firefighting machine benefits primarily a handful of western states (with California leading the pack) while many states’ residents (e.g., New England) pay costs and receive no benefit whatsoever. The Antiplanner’s approach better ensures that those who benefit from wildland firefighting pay the freight.
Andy Stahl posted:
The Forest Service employs and pays most of its firefighters whether they fight fires or not.
Though the same can be said of “paid” firefighters working for local governments, correct?
Wind-driven fires in drought-stricken fuels, such as these, are about as controllable as earthquakes and tsunamis. Managing the people affected becomes emergency personnel’s main job, as stopping the fires themselves is impossible. Yet we spend hundreds of millions on such fires dropping retardant where it does little, if any, good.
We learned this lesson in February here in the East over President’s Day weekend, when we had a (rare for us) “Red Flag” warning because of drought and high winds.
Some posts from local fire departments back then:
Burtonsville Units Operate at Large Brush Fires In the Area Driven by High Winds
Large Fire in Laurel
BRUSH FIRE IN THE 2-21 SHUTS DOWN CENTRAL AVE.
Epic Day for Hyattsville & County Crews
Unlike typical urban and rural fire districts, where the local beneficiaries of firefighting foot the costs, the federal government’s firefighting machine benefits primarily a handful of western states (with California leading the pack) while many states’ residents (e.g., New England) pay costs and receive no benefit whatsoever.
My state of Maryland has exactly hectares (or acres) of national forest land, though we do have a significant amount of land owned “directly” by the USDA in the form of the sprawling Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.
Unfortunately, you are pissing into the wind if you expect Congress to cut or limit forest fire funding. Natural disaster – fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms – relief has become a de facto Federal entitlement.
Natural disaster – fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms – relief has become a de facto Federal entitlement.
Exaggerations aside, of course civil societies try to alleviate pain from natural disasters. But there is an interesting point here – perhaps the attention to fire is some sort of penance for allowing to build in the WUI in the first place…
DS
bennett:
I’m assuming the controlled burns will cost money too
One wonders how the Indians managed to burn the forests and not their houses and fields. Maybe they had a multi-billion dollar agency running the show as well.
Not a multi-billion dollar agency, but a very, very wise man called Chief Sitting Dan. You see, he would plan the fires so they never touched Indian encampments, sacred areas, or other places that didn’t need burning.
As far as controlled burns go, lots of such fires are set in the South, where it is flat and the weather is easy to predict, and such fires typically cost about $10 an acre. In the mountainous West where windstorms are fairly unpredictable, controlled burns are much more expensive — on the order of $200 an acre — and much more likely to get out of control. So what it comes down to is we can’t afford to burn it all with controlled burns.
Beyond that, only some forest types respond to controlled burns. Such types make up about 85 percent of forests in the South but only about a third of forests in the West.
Finally, remember my main point: reducing fuels on public lands is neither necessary nor sufficient to protect adjacent private lands. Reducing fuels on those private lands is both necessary and sufficient to protecting those lands. So let each landowner protect their own and don’t waste money on the federal lands unless the resources being protected are truly worth the cost.
Randal is correct. Paying full freight for fire protection will definitely reduce second homes in the WUI. And I have an old GF who lived near the Trinity NF and her High School was damaged in a controlled burn. It was to eradicate yellow star thistle, but still. In the mountains, winds are unpredictable and fires get out of control.
DS
Hey Danny Boy. So you are saying that a government planner spent a lot of taxpayer money to plan to outwit nature, and nature didn’t do what the planners modeled? What an eye-opening experience that must have been for you. Poor baby.
Tell us, Danny Boy, did your GF high school’s bully go cry to the principal because the kids who didn’t like government planning weren’t being nice to the bully?
The federal government has to pay a lot for fire suppression because the public demands it of them. If a fire starts on fed lands, whether by visitors or lightening, the public is not going to stand for them allowing a bunch of houses to burn up on the 5:00 news. The federal government could prohibit anyone on the land, but then people would wonder why the feds hold the land.
A better approach would be that the planners change their cheap computer models to prevent lightening from hitting federal land.
Dan: Well, you can be sure some states will screw it up and several thousand homes in the WUI will go up in flames. Maybe then we’ll start talking about the wisdom of second homes there. But I doubt it.
THWM: Higher insurance rates for people the choose to build in higher risk areas, might be a good idea too.
The only issue with letting it burn now is that there are literally tens or hundreds of thousands of homes that were allowed to be built in the WUI. There was an expectation of protection. Now it is too late. The bulk of the cost – as Randal has already pointed out several times – is in protecting structures that were built with an expectation of protection.
DS
“In the mountainous West where windstorms are fairly unpredictable, controlled burns are much more expensive — on the order of $200 an acre — and much more likely to get out of control. So what it comes down to is we can’t afford to burn it all with controlled burns.”
First, I suggest the use of the term “prescribed fire” over “controlled burn”; the latter has fallen into disuse largely because it implies, well, that human-ignited fires have a high level of control. Prescribed fire is conducted under many different narrow and prescribed conditions, and managers prepare for the possibility of the fire leaving prescription. Weather is predictable in the West, but predictions are not absolutes. It’s about risk management. Nearly every vegetated acre has burned in the past and will burn in the future.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center’s website, in 1999, federal agencies spent $99,104,000 to treat 2,240,105 acres at an average of $44 an acre. That same year, it cost about $92 an acre to suppress wildfires. Suppression costs increased in subsequent years. In 2003, over $1.3 billion was spent fighting wildfires on 4,918,088 acres at a cost of $269 an acre. The Hayman Fire near Denver, Colorado burned 2,700 acres in 2003 and cost a whopping $9,455 an acre. Clearly, to use the old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Treatment options for vast tracks of wilderness land can include natural prescribed fire, greatly reducing the cost of treatment.
“Beyond that, only some forest types respond to controlled burns. Such types make up about 85 percent of forests in the South but only about a third of forests in the West.”
Source please. All forest types respond to fire, but not all historically burned at a frequent interval. Higher elevation forest types generally have longer fire return intervals, with red fir, for example, having a median of 70 years, although that frequency may be underestimated. Lodgepole forests in two wilderness areas in Northern California were shown to have pre-settlement return intervals of 46 years and 76 years; both of those have drastically lengthened to 177 years and 577 years showing the extent which fire suppression has affected a variety of ecosystems, even ones declared not to respond to fire.
The Antiplanner’s statement also neglects non-forested areas, such as California’s chaparral and the Great Basin’s sage steepe and pinyon-juniper woodlands. The fire return interval in the sagebrush steepe ecosystem was 12 to 15 years prior to the settlement period. According to one study, average “fire return intervals of less than 15 years were adequate to inhibit western juniper encroachment and probably limit sagebrush cover allowing the herbaceous layer to dominate the landscape.”
As for the WUI, there are privately owned fuel reduction companies that conduct prescribed fire for private land owners in the Sierra Nevada. I suggest that private land owners individually or collectively pay for and use the services of said company. If they do not, too bad. It should be the continuing role of federal agencies, as long as they hold title to public lands, to reduce fuel and to restore ecosystems using fire.
Andy writes:
Hey Danny Boy. [blah, blah, blah] Poor baby. Tell us, Danny Boy, did your GF high school’s bully go cry to the principal because the kids who didn’t like government planning weren’t being nice to the bully?
Mr. O’Toole: Is this commentary in line with your new policy? Seems pretty out of hand to me.
What do they call Andrew again? Oh yes, the Libertarian Snitch.
Though most people that call them selves “libertarian”, are in reality despotic in nature.
You seem to prefer despotic policies yourself. The communists loved trollies and high density housing.